The Sea of Monsters Rewrite
by djrocks
Summary: The year has been pretty quiet for the Jackson twins. But when Percy plays a game of dodgeball with cannibal giants and Cam comes back from spy school this are looking pretty ugly. Now the magic boarders to camp are failing, monsters are attacking, Percy's mad at Cam, Grover's in trouble-Things are looking so good anymore. And then there's a quest. Sequel to The Lightning Thief.
1. Chapter 1

_—Sea of Monsters rewrite_

* * *

OUR BEST FRIEND SHOPS FOR A WEDDING DRESS

* * *

(Percy's prospective)

* * *

My nightmare started like this.

I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned.

_Florida, _I thought. I wasn't sure how I knew that. I'd never been to Florida.

Then I heard hooves clattering against the pavement. I turned and saw my friend Grover running for his life.

Yeah, I said _hooves._

Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzz goatee and a bad case of acne. He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch him without his pants on (which I don't recommend), you'd never know there was anything unhuman about him. Baggy jeans and fake feet hide the fact that he's go furry hindquarters and hooves.

Grover had been my best friend in sixth grade, along with my twin sister, Cammie. He'd gone on this adventure with me and Cam, and a girl named Annabeth to save the world, but I hadn't seen him since last July, when he set off alone on a dangerous quest—a quest no satyr had ever returned from.

Anyway, in my dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the way he does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the little tourist shops and surfboard rental places. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground.

Grover was terrified of something behind him. He must've just come from the beach. Wet sand was caked in his fur. He'd escaped from somewhere. He was trying to get away from…something.

A bone-rattling growl cut through the storm. Behind Grover at the far end of the block, a shadowy figure loomed. It swatted aside a street lamp, which burst in a show of sparks.

Grover stumbled, whimpering in fear. He muttered to himself, _have to get away. Have to warn them!_

I couldn't see what was chasing him, but I could hear it muttering and cursing. The ground shook as it got closer. Grover dashed around a street corner and faltered. He'd run into a dead-end courtyard full of shops. No time to back up. The nearest door had been blown open by the storm. The sign above the darkened display window read: ST. AUGUSTINE BRIDAL BOUTIQUE.

Grover dashed inside. He dove behind a rack of wedding dresses.

The monster's shadow passed in front of the shop. I could smell the thing—a sickening combination of wet sheep wool and rotten meat and that weird sour body odor only monsters have, like a skunk that's been living off Mexican food.

Grover trembled behind the wedding dresses. The monster's shadow passed on. Silence except for the rain. Grover took a deep breath. Maybe the thing was gone.

Then lighting flashed. The entire front of the store exploded, and a monstrous voice bellowed: "MIIIINE!"

* * *

Gasping, I shot up from my laying position, and started yelling for Cammie, to tell her right away what I saw.

But then I remembered she was gone. Had left months ago to go to some fancy spy boarding school. She was in Virginia, leaning spy stuff, and I was stuck back in New York, leaning normal stuff. She had lots of friends, and I had never felt so alone.

But I couldn't be all that mad at her. This was her dream, already becoming reality before her very eyes. I could ask her to come home, and she would. But I couldn't ask that of her. Because even though I missed her, and knew that she would always love me, if I selfishly asked her to come home, a little part of her would hate me.

So I got up and walked over to her old bed, sitting down on it. She had written letters, and I had half the heart to write back. I knew the letters were more for mom's sake then my own. Mom would get so excited when Cam's weekly letter would come in. I would read them, then set them on her old nightstand.

Mom walked in, peering inside. "Percy, are you alright? I heard you scream."

I nodded. "It's alright mom, just a bad dream."

She took note how I sat on Cam's bed instead of my own. "School's almost over, Percy," she said, coming to sit beside me. "You'll see her again real soon."

"She comes home in two days," I told her. "She says that tomorrow is her last day of finals, and the next day everybody goes home."

Mom smiled. "That's good." Her eyes slid over to the nightstand, and she picked up the letter on top. "Do you mind reading it for me?"

I shrugged, sliding the paper out of the envelope. Cammie wrote in Greek because of her Dyslexia only allowed her to read and write in that specific language. As Annabeth once said, it because the language is hardwired into our brains, our Greek heritage coming into play.

_"Dear Mom and Percy,_

_Things are going great here. Liz has been helping me study for finals, reading and rereading all the notes she's taken (which is a lot). We've been doing some small scale experiments in our room, and I've become quite the bomb maker. I now know how to make an explosion using a battery, nail polish and a gum wrapper. We did a small scale explosion in our room yesterday. What would have gotten me expelled anywhere else, is encouraged here. Bex has been training with me in the P&E barn, and things are going really well. I haven't broken anyone else's noses since Eva's, and once again, it was an accident, and she wasn't at all mad at me. In fact, she told me it was a good shot._

_"I've already become fluent in Spanish, French and Japanese, and started to learn Korean, and Chinese, which is awesome. You wouldn't believe all the things I've been learning over here. It's like being part of the X men or something._

_"I'm sorry this letter is so short. I've been so busy with studying, that nothing really interesting has been happening. I'll be home in a few days, and I can show you all the other pictures I've taken while here. And I can show you some of the other things I've learned, like updating your computer, and making it run faster. That way you can work on homework a little faster, mom._

_"I miss and love you both so much, you can't even begin to understand it—not even you Percy._

_"Until the end of the week. Love, Cammie."_

I folded the letter back up as neatly as possible, taking one last look at the picture of Cam and her friends standing proudly outside their school that she had slipped in the envelope .

Mom took the letter and held it to her heart. She pulled me into her side, kissing my head. "Two more days, Percy. I'm sure you can make it."

I nodded, but knew that wasn't the whole truth.

"Go back to bed, Sweetheart. You have school tomorrow."

* * *

As soon as morning came around, I grabbed a drachma and iris messaged Cam.

When her image popped up, it was of Cammie brushing her hair in a lavish room, books and wires, and all sorts of odds and ends everywhere. She looked so different. Her long black hair had gotten longer, straighter and shinier since I last saw her in person. She wore makeup—something she used to scorn—and it made her sea green eyes pop. She didn't look much older; taller, maybe. Her eyes held a sort of knowledge that they didn't before. A sort of confidence. But she didn't stick out. She was pretty, but she looked normal. Someone you would pass on the streets and never even know she'd been there in the first place. And that's what was so different about her. My sister doesn't blend in. It's like she doesn't even know _how._

After a moment of scorning these new changes, I snapped back. "Cammie," I said, trying to gain her attention.

Jumping, Cam held her hairbrush out in defense. I rolled my eyes. "Really? What could you possibly do with that?"

"You'd be surprised," she said in a hushed voice. "We learned a few moves yesterday. I could kill a man with this thing." I flinched at 'kill a man'. Months ago, it would have been 'kill a monster'. "But, come on, Percy, what are you doing calling me this early in the morning? One of the girls could have been in here and seen you."

"It's important," I told her, almost in a defensive tone. She's _my _sister. I have every right to call her whenever I want.

"Obviously, I can feel your emotions, remember? You're just lucky I'm running late today. Anyway, where were you last night? I didn't see you in my dream."

"Grover's in danger, Cam. I had a dream that he was running from something." I told her every part of my dream, from start to finish.

She looked panicked. "Oh gods. Did he look okay? I mean, other than the obvious panic attack he must have been having."

"He was fine. Now when are you coming home?"

She looked a bit sheepish. "Uh, tomorrow. I have finals today, and then I'll be heading straight over to Camp Half-Blood tomorrow."

I gave her a wounded look. "You're not coming to see mom?"

She ran a hand through her hair. "I've already written to her, she understands!"

"Maybe, but you know it hurts her."

There was a knock on the door from her end. "Cammie, you coming?"

"Be right out, Bex!" she yelled. "Don't wait up." She turned back to me. "Look Percy, if Grover's in trouble, we shouldn't wait up. We can leave camp a week earlier this summer; spend two weeks together with mom."

"Make her wait three more months?"

Cammie eyes narrowed slightly, as if she was trying to hide the hurt in them. "You said it yourself, Grover is in danger. How am I going to sit and relax when I know my best friend is out there probably about to get eaten?"

"Oh, so you still consider him your best friend?" I scoffed.

Now her eyes narrowed in anger. "Why wouldn't I? Don't you?"

"Yeah, well I was just assuming, since you have new best friends and all—"

"Yeah, well you assumed wrong," she growled.

I crossed my arms over my chest, my anger growing as well. "Bit defensive right now, huh?"

"Of course I'm being defensive. Grover is still my best friend, no matter how many new ones I make. And who are you to talk? Aren't you best friends with that boy Tyson now?"

It felt as though she had slapped me. "That's—"

"Don't you dare say it's different," she said, picking up her backpack. "I'm late for breakfast. I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah," I brooded.

_I'm sorry,_ I told her through our bond. It seemed easier thinking it instead of saying it.

Her eyes softened, and she smiled sadly. "I know," she whispered, waving her hand though the mist, wiping herself away.

I looked to the window, the morning sun blinding me.

I thought I saw a shadow flicker across the glass—a humanlike shape. But then there was a knock on my bedroom door—my mom called: "Percy, you're going to be late"—and the shadow at the window disappeared.

It must have been my imagination. A fifth-story window with a rickety old fire escape…there couldn't have been anyone out there.

"Come on Percy, last day of school!" mom yelled. "You should be excited! You've almost made it!"

"Coming," I managed.

I reached under my pillow. My fingers closed reassuringly around the ballpoint pen I always slept with. I brought it out, studied the Ancient Greek writing engraved on the side: _Anaklumos. _Riptide. Cammie had a sword similar to it, but the engravings that decorated the sword were names of all the soldiers that had ever used the sword, and it was nameless.

I thought about uncapping Riptide, but something held me back. I hadn't used it for so long…

Besides, my mom had made me promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment after I'd swung a javelin the wrong way and taken out her china cabinet. I put Anaklusmos on my nightstand, and started to get ready for school.

Getting dressed as quick as I could, I tried not to think about Grover, or my nightmare or monsters, or even the shadow at my window.

_Have to get away. Have to warn them!_

What had Grover meant?

I made a three-fingered claw over my heart and pushed outward—an ancient gesture Grover had once taught me and Cammie for warding off evil. I smiled at the memory of Cammie using it on our stepfather, Gabe, and it actually working, sending him flying backwards.

Last day of school. my mom was right, I should have been excited. For the first time in my life, I'd almost made it an entire year without getting expelled. No weird accidents. No fights in the classroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill me with poisoned cafeteria food or exploding homework. Tomorrow, I'd be on my way back to my favorite place in the world—Camp Half Blood. And I'd be with my sister, and everything would be so right with the world, there would be a holiday created just to celebrate this possibly once in a life time occurrence.

For a moment I couldn't help but thinking that my luck had to do with Cammie going off to Gallagher. Obviously, I love my sister, but she can get _slightly _over the top. Her bad temper and quick fists have gotten us into a lot of trouble over the years. I mean, I have a horrible temper too, but hers is slightly more rampant then my own. Maybe that, and not having two demigods blood pumping around in the same area throwing around the stench for all the monsters to sniff out.

Picking up my backpack, I took a deep breath. Only one more day to go. Surely even I couldn't mess that up.

As usual, I didn't have a clue how wrong I was.

* * *

My mom made blue waffles and blue eggs for breakfast. She's funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Cammie can make it through her first year at spy school. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.

I ate at the kitchen table while my mom washed dishes. She was dressed in her work uniform—a starry blue skirt and a red and white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

The waffles tasted great, but I guess I wasn't digging in like I usually did. Mom looked over and frowned. "Percy are you all right?"

"Yeah…fine." I wondered if Cammie just told me that she sent mom a letter saying she wasn't coming home. "Mom...you do know that Cam's not making it home tomorrow, right?"

Mom gave me a sad little smile. "Yes, the letter came in two days ago. It's in English too. Apparently her roommate, Liz, had gotten into some of the final stages of development on her language translator. It's so cool, she says that all you have to do is take a picture of what is written on the page, whether it is typed or written by hand, and it'll translate it for you. How exciting. Anyway, she told me that she'll be heading straight to camp this year because she's going with her friends to an in town carnival the night that school gets out. And since Chiron had been so insistent that you guys get back as soon as school ends, she doesn't want to worry him further by coming late." Her shoulders tensed as she started talking about camp.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I'll tell you what. This afternoon, we celebrate the end of school. I'll take you and Tyson to Rockefeller Center—to that skateboard shop you like."

Oh, man, that was tempting. We were always struggling with money. Between my mom's night classes and my private school tuition, we could never afford to do special stuff like shop for a skateboard. But something in her voice bothered me.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought we were packing me up for camp tonight."

She twisted her dishrag. "Ah, dear, about that…I still haven't gotten ahold of Cammie about this, you might have to be the one to tell her…but I got a message from Chiron last night."

My heart sank. Chiron was the activates director at Camp Half-Blood. He wouldn't contact us unless something serious was going on. "What did he say?"

"He thinks…it might not be safe for you two to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone."

"_Postpone_? Mom, how could it not be _safe_? I'm a half-blood! It's like the only safe place on earth for us!"

"Usually, dear. But with the problems they've been having—"

"_What _problems?"

"Percy…I'm very, very sorry. I was hoping to get ahold of Cammie myself, tell her, get her here and tell you tomorrow. I can't explain it all now. I'm not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly."

My mind was reeling. How could we _not _go to camp? I wanted to ask a million questions, but just then the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.

My mom looked almost relieved. "Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting."

"But—"

"Percy, we'll talk this afternoon. Go on to school. Make sure you're sister knows. But don't tell her while she's taking finals, I don't want her worried about it then. She's been studying so hard, I'd hate for it all to be a waste."

The last thing I wanted to do was go to school and pretend nothing bad was happening. But mom looked so tiered, so fragile—like one wrong word and she might start to cry. Besides, she was right about my friend, Tyson. I had to meet him at the subway station on time or he'd get upset. He was scared of traveling underground alone.

I gathered up my stuff, but I stopped in the doorway. "Mom, this problem at camp. Does it…could it have anything to do with my nightmare?"

She wouldn't meet my eyes. "We'll talk this afternoon, dear. I'll explain…as much as I can."

I felt Cam nudging at the back of my mind, sensing my horrible mood. I send a warm feeling her way to calm her. Mom was right; she had finals today, so there was no point worrying her.

Reluctantly, I told mom goodbye. I jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.

As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a second I saw a dark shape in the morning sunlight—a human silhouette against the brick wall, a shadow that belonged to no one.

This it rippled and vanished.

* * *

Cammie sat at the lunch table with the rest of the eighth graders, not even touching her food. With her brother's feelings shoving their way into her mind, and her lack of sleep last night, she wasn't feeling all that hungry.

A little blond haired, pixie like, girl slid an orange across the table towards her. "You have to eat something," the girl said, her accent soft and southern. "We have finals today, and you need something to fuel you."

Cammie gave her a small grin. "Thank you, Lizzy. I'm just not all that hungry this morning." Still, she took the orange and started to peal it.

"Test nerves?" Liz guessed.

Cammie shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so," she lied.

The caramel skinned, black haired goddess sitting next to Cam eyed her carefully. "You had another nightmare last night," she started in an English accent. "Same one?"

"Every time," she nodded. Seeing the worry sketched on her face, she smiled. "Don't you worry about me, Bex, I'll be fine. I'll bomb these tests and then I'll break down into a nervous puddle of sleep-deprivation and fatigue."

"Look at you," the Brit said slyly. "You come in this school with a vocabulary bank of nearly nothing, and are about to walk out with a thesaurus of big words. You seemed to have rubbed off on her, Lizzy."

Cammie smiled, but her trouble-o-meter was going off.

* * *

**So that's the first chapter! It's short in the book and so it's a bit short here too.**

**Because I have not finished my other fanfiction yet (out of pure laziness) I'll be alternating between this story and that one. I won't post another chapter here until I get one up there. so expect updates every other week.**

**That last part was in third prospective showing a bit of Cammie. I don't know, just thought I'd try it out, did you guys like that part at the end? I wanted to include the girls a bit in this story. The nightmares are kind of an overflow from the first story. Pretty important later on.**

**I'm going to be taking some rather strange turns in this story. Things won't go exactly as they did in the book, and I might be leaving some things out. I'll include everything important, so don't worry.**

**The one-shots of Cam's first year at Gallagher are up, but they suck majorly, so don't feel like you need to read them. Anything important that is from the one-shots will be explained in here, so don't worry you don't need to read them to understand it.**

**I don't know what else to say. Thanks for sticking with this, and I hope you're all excited for the second part in the rewrite!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: This chapter is in Percy's prospective**

* * *

I PLAY DODGEBALL WITH CANNIBLES

* * *

The day started out just as normal as any other day. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.

You see, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert T-shirts to work.

That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me and Cammie out. whenever we talk about school—which is next to never—I like to brag about this to Cammie, make her feel jealous, but wherever I try, she likes to throw out the fact that they have a chief that used to work for the president as their cook. She doesn't even have to mention they don't do math there. I know in comparison, Gallagher is better than Meriwether. Not even factoring in that it's a spy school and they have a gourmet chief. The teachers at Meriwether were always looking on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't always…well, bright.

Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called _Lord of the Flies, _where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, lead most of these activities.

Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.

I didn't like talking about Sloan much either, but when he got to be too much for me some days, I'd rant for hours on end about him to Cammie. She didn't need to have met him to hate his guts. There were days I had to convince her to stay in Virginia instead of running up to New York just to kick his brain back into a respectable place.

Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friend Tyson.

Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether Collage Prep. As near as my mom and I could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so…different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and was scared of just about everything, including his own-reflection. His face was kind of misshapen and brutal-looking. I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tattered jeans, grimy size-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flannel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York City alleyway, because that's where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd street.

Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a community service project so all the students could feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn't stand Tyson. Once they discovered he was a bid softie, despite his massive strength and scary looks, they made themselves feel good by picking on him. I was pretty much his only friend, which meant he was _my _only friend.

My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren't doing enough to help him. She'd called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tyson didn't exist. They swore up and down that they'd visited the alley we described and couldn't find him, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don't know.

Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. He swatted Sloan away a little too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.

"You freak!" Sloan yelled. "Why don't you go back to your cardboard box!"

Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his head in his hands.

"Take it back, Sloan!" I shouted.

Sloan just sneered at me. "Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have _friends _if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."

I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. "He's _not_ a freak. He's just…"

I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn't listening. He and his big ugly friends were to busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hanging around him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like , half a dozen more, and I was pretty sure I'd never seen then before.

"Just wait till PE, Jackson!" Sloan called. "You are _so _dead."

When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage. He pronounced that we'd understood_ Lord of the Flies _perfectly. We all passed his course, and we should never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chip-toothed grin.

I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.

"I…I am freak?" he asked me.

"No," I promised, without hesitation, gritting my teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."

Tyson sniffled. "You are good friend. Miss you next year if…if I can't…"

His voice trembled. I realized he didn't know if he'd be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.

"Don't worry, big guy," I managed. "Everything's going to be fine."

He was rubbing the tears out of his eyes, sniffling. "Will the pretty girl with black hair come back tonight?" he asked.

He was talking about Cammie. I had mentioned her once, saying how much I missed my sister, and Tyson started asking me question. At first I answered them hesitantly, not really wanting to share her anymore then I had too. I already had to share her with those girls from Gallagher, and I didn't enjoy that, but Tyson was persistent. So I told him everything he wanted to know. What she looked like, her favorite color, how strong she was despite how little she looked. How crazy, yet caring she could be. She's a tough kid, but had such a soft heart. I told him how much I needed her, how she was my best friend, next to him. I had brought a picture of her once, and Tyson told me she looked like a princess. I laughed and told him he should never say that again, or at least not in ear-shot of her. Before I knew it, Tyson had started idolizing her in a way. I wasn't even sure if he realized she was, in fact, a _real _person. I started to think he thought she was just some character, like Aladdin, or the Little Mermaid. Most parents read stories to their children, but since Tyson didn't have parents, Cammie kind of became his story book hero. Which I thought was okay. I know Cam wouldn't mind; she'd probably enjoy it a little too much. I know she told her roommates stories about me all the time, and if I had accidentally made her out to be some kind of hero to my friend, she'd consider her life completed. Whenever Tyson got really upset, he'd ask me to tell him a story about the pretty girl with black hair.

One day, when he was super upset, I told him that Cammie was coming up to New York for a week to spent time with my mom, and promised him he could come meet her. He was so happy, I could just tell him 'the pretty black haired girl's coming here soon', and he'd stop crying about anything.

But really shouldn't have told him that. Because she had just said last night she wouldn't be making it. And now I was going to have to break the news to Tyson.

"Well, you see…she might be…" I tried to word it someway that wouldn't sound so horrible.

He just looked at me with hopeful eyes.

_Well, Chiron did say we shouldn't head to camp just yet. That it wasn't exactly safe. I do still have to tell her,_ I thought. _I'm sure she'll have to come spend a few days with us now. _

"She's still coming," I finally told him. "She might be day or two late though, so don't get upset."

He shook his head wildly, like a little kid that promised he'd behave so his mom would give him a sucker.

_Everything's going to be fine,_ I told myself.

Man did I feel likes such a liar in that moment.

* * *

Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeeded in making something explode. Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were ways too big for the tiny vials we were supposed to use.

_Hey, Cammie, _I asked. _What chemicals make a small explosion?_

_What do you have?_ She asked.

_Uh, blue liquids, red liquids, yellow, green…_

_Do you have a light blue liquid, and a sort of lime-ish green?_

_Uh…yeah, I do._

_Okay, take the green, and pour the blue into it._

I told Tyson to hand over the blue, and did what she said.

It made an orange mushroom cloud.

After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who'd ever aced her exam in under thirty seconds.

I smiled to myself as we left the classroom. _That wasn't a small explosion. _

_Oh, dear, naive, Percy. You know I have no idea how to make a _small _explosion. That sort of knowledge just doesn't exist in my brain. Now I have to get back to my test. I'm in P&E, and kicking butt._

_Okay, but Cam, we have to talk later. Let me know when you're done with your finals._

I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. I couldn't stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn't shake the memory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.

In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps, I opened my notebook and stared at the photo inside next to the one of me and Cammie—my friend Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place. See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way. She'd e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I'd look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn't just been my imagination. I couldn't depend on Cammie's testimony alone—she's full out bat crazy.

I wished Annabeth were here. She'd know what to make of my dream. I'd never admit it to her, but she was smarter than me, even if she was annoying sometimes.

I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.

"Hey!" I protested.

Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is _not _your—"

"Give it back!" My ears felt hot.

Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in the strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.

"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare me. "I bet they can _pay _the tuition, to, unlike your retard friend."

"He's _not _retarded." I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.

His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict orders from Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were. I had to save my fighting for monsters.

Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only know who I really was…

The ball rang.

As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"

I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any attention. Like any girl at Meriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name. Must have been Cammie. Why she didn't follow up with anything is strange.

Before I had time to consider whether or not it was Cammie or I was imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us a free-for-all dodgeball game and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.

* * *

The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we don't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.

I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn't want to deal with Sloan. I was about to leave when Tyson called, "Percy?"

He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes. "Well you…uh…"

"Oh. Yeah." I tried not to sound aggravated about it. "Yeah, sure, man."

Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it's because he's completely hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that I've never had the courage to ask him about.

Anyway, I'd learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.

When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading _Sports Illustrated. _Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. he reminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood—which was a shriveled-up mummy—except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I'd observed.

Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"

"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."

Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side. So did the big group of visitors.

On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandeli the calculus whiz, and a half dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half the team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.

Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.

"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."

I looked at him. "What smells funny?" Because I didn't figure he was talking about himself.

"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."

The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was laughter time. I suddenly imagined Cammie standing right beside me, mirroring their actions, sneering, hissing any insults that came to her mind without hesitation. I couldn't help wondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed the kids raw meat and beat them with sticks.

Sloan blew coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the center line. On my side, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably "I have to go potty!" and ran for the exit. Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best cower in fear and not look like targets.

"Tyson," I said. "Let's g—"

A ball slammed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.

My eyesight was fuzzy. I felt like I'd just gotten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn't believe anybody could throw that hard.

Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"

I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.

_Whooom!_

It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.

"Hey!" I yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"

The visitor named Joe Bob grinned at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now…even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"

The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. nobody called me Perseus except those who knew my true identity. Friends…and enemies.

What had Tyson said? _They smell funny._

Monsters.

All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattoed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.

Matt Sloan dropped his ball. "Whoa! You're not from Detroit! Who…"

The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant named Marrow Sucker threw his ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was about to leave and hit the door, slamming it shuck like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on it desperately but it wouldn't budge.

"Let them go!" I yelled at the giants.

The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tattoo on his biceps that said: _JB luvs babycakes. _"And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren't just playing for your death. We want lunch!"

He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line—but these balls weren't made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.

"Coach!" I yelled.

Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. That's the problem with mortals. Am magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw a few eighth graders pouding the younger kids like usual. Maybe the other kids saw Matt Sloan's thugs getting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. (It wouldn't have been the first time.) At any rate, I was pretty sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eating bloodthirsty monsters.

"Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice."

And he went back to his magazine.

The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past my shoulder.

"Corey!" I screamed.

Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.

"Run!" I told my teammates. "The other exit!"

They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob's hand, the door also slammed shut.

"No one leaves unless you're out!" Joe Bob roared. "And you're not out until we eat you!"

He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.

I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gym shorts. I _had _no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. I was completely defenseless.

Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosion still blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at me.

"Flesh!" they bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.

"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.

"Tyson!" I screamed, but it was too late.

Both balls slammed into him…but no…he'd caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding towards him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.

The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame—a sure sign they were monsters, all right. Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.

"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his _Babycakes _tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"

_Obviously my destruction was already on the menu._

Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!

Kids were running and screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Other were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.

Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but kept his eyes on his magazine.

Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would come help us.

"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"

"I think you're taking the game _way _to seriously!" I yelled at him. _Oh, great, _I thought. _My inner Cammie is showing._

Another dodgeball hit the wall next to my head.

_Yeah, it's showing, that's how most would react to her saying that._

I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn't deflect all those balls at once. His hands _had _to be seriously burned form blocking the first volley. Without my sword…

I had a crazy idea.

I ran towards the locker room.

"Move!" I told my teammates. "Away from the door."

Explosions behind me. Tyson had batted two of the balls back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.

The left two giants still standing.

A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.

Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys' locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion, so I wasn't surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge WHOOOOOOM!

The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.

In turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisly held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him.

"No!" I yelled.

The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. I didn't see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

"Well!" Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"

He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.

"Stop!" I yelled. "It's me you want!"

The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"

I had to do something. Riptide had to be around her somewhere.

Then I spotted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant's feet. If I could only get there…I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.

The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.

_I'm sorry, Cammie. I don't want to leave you alone, but I have to do something._

Suddenly the giant's body went ridged. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should've been, his T-Shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn—no, not a horn—the glowing tip of a blade.

The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.

He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.

Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she'd just been cased a thousand miles by ghosts.

Matt Sloan, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture. "That's the girl…that's the girl—"

Annabeth suddenly raised her knife above him, as though she was going to stab him right in the middle of his forehead. Having been through enough near death for the day, he proceeded to pass out, hitting the floor with a loud thud.

Annabeth lowered her knife and gave him a swift kick to his ribs. "And _you,_" she told him, "lay off my friend."

They gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heart sirens wailed and a garbled voice over intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.

"Annabeth…"I stammered. "How did you…how long have you…"

"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronzed knife. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."

"The shadow I saw this morning—that was—" My face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"

"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to—"

"There," a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.

"Meet me outside," Annabeth told me. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn't quite understand. "You'd better bring him."

"_What?_"

"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"

She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantly vanished.

That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in the half the faculty and a couple of police officers.

"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What…how…"

Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."

Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"

Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck—he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."

The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell them the truth.

I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.

* * *

The girl with long black hair that was as wavy and untamed as the sea stood in front of the burning school wing, her arms crossed, a blank look on her face. She wore a long, charcoal pea coat, sunglasses to shield her eyes from the sun that had hit itself away as soon as the rain started falling, and a pair of gray ankle boots with tall heels to make her look much taller then she actually was. For only being thirteen years old, the look made her seem much older, and she blended in with the adults around her.

An hour or two had passed since the incident happened, and still people hadn't calmed down in the slightest bit. Civilians flocked to the scene, like bees to flowers, and were buzzing around like them too. Except this one girl, who stood calmly, looking as if what she was watching happened every day, and was by this point boring. But if anyone at the scene knew her they'd have seen the smirk beneath the placid look.

_Of course he gets in trouble the day I come back,_ she thought. _I stopped by for him, and he makes it a point to disappear. Typical Percy._

She scanned the wreckage slowly, taking everything in. A giant hole in the gym wall, obviously. Would have taken a great amount of force. It burned slightly at the edges. Maybe there was a gas leak. Highly improbable. Some kid being stupid, brought something explosive. Again, unlikely.

Monsters. Now that's a feasible theory.

She could see a kid a few yards away making a bit of a scene. He was ranting and raving about giant kids who were _not _from Detroit, a girl threating him with a knife, and a loser named _Percy Jackson _blowing up the school gym, nearly killing everybody. Him in particular.

She studied him. Short, skinny, bratty looking. He had what used to be nice clothes, now covered in ash, and starting to char on the edges. From the accident. No other explanation there really. He got driven around anywhere he wanted to go, that much was clear by his shoes. Not a scratch, mud stain, or wearing on the heels. His hands had slight scratching, and his knuckles had tint of red in the folds—blood. Scratching most lightly from scrapping his knuckles across something sharp, or hitting a thin edge fast and hard. Glasses or braces, maybe something else. Blood, not his—no obvious open wounds, and he hasn't bothered to wash it off. Shows he took pride in what it symbolized. Based on his rude vocabulary, narcissistic behavior, and obvious dislike to the kids around him, he was most lightly a bully. 98% likely.

Her smirk grew into a mischievous smile. From what she heard from Percy, this boy was more than likely Matt Sloan. The school's residential rich kid and bully.

There was two choices that came to mind in that moment. Ignore the kid, get on with what she came to do: examine the damage and figure out a way to keep this off the news. The charitable way.

Or she could go a little off script. Do something a little stupid, something they wouldn't approve of in the field she was training for.

Charity when out the window.

First, to take care of business.

Pulling the ID wallet out of her pocket, she marched over to the group of adults that seemed to be in charge of the school.

"Hello," she said in a brisk tone, flashing them her ID. "I'm Alisa Fletching from the Harrison Gas Company. It seems the email didn't reach you in time. Thankfully, no one got hurt."

One man, who stood in the middle of the group, turned to stare at her. "Uh, hi, I'm Mr. Bonsai, the headmaster here. I'm sorry, but what email would you be referring to?"

"The one informing you there has been a gas leak in the gymnasium area." It may have been an implausible explanation, but it was the human way to believe in an easy explanation—no matter how unlikely—against no explanation.

"That was caused by a gas leak?" one man asked.

"Yes, a small one. I assure you, the Harrison Company has already started drawing up plans to fix this problem, so you best not worry too much about it. Though that kind of explosion would have had to had been caused by setting the gas aflame. A match, or lighter perhaps."

"Are you saying that one of the kids might have set the room on fire?" a woman asked.

One of the other men studied her. "Are you sure you're old enough to work for the Gas Company? You seem very young."

"I'll take that as a complement, Sir. If you have any problems with me, you can have one of the many police officers here look me up, and they can confirm that I do, in fact, work for the Gas Company."

They shared a look that said no one wanted to go through the trouble. Not that it would have matter anyway. All the IDs she'd ever made had government backups, and they could search for an Alisa Fletching, and find her right away. Twenty-five year old assistant in the Harrison Gas Company.

"Anyway, what I'm saying that it wouldn't have just exploded on its own. Something had to had set it aflame."

"Well, we've already gotten a witness claiming Percy did it," Mr. Bonsai told his colleagues, who all nodded in agreement.

"For legal purposes, you might want to check the students," she advised. "Just so it's not a 'he said, she said' kind of situation."

The adults seemed to share a look and agree. They all split up, and started searching the kids' pockets.

Her smile returned as they left. "That went well," she muttered to herself, pulling off her sunglasses, walking over to the boy who continued to make a fuss.

She slid her glasses into her pocket, looking around to make sure none of the adults she was just talking to saw what she was about to do.

Tapping the boy on the shoulder, she asked, "Matt Sloan, right?"

The boy turned, and stared at her, as though he was seeing someone else. Then he shook his head, still looking a bit suspicious. "Ah, yeah, that's me."

Her smile grew. "Oh, great. It's so great to finally meet you. I'm heard all about you."

"Ah, really?"

"Yep. And I've got something for you," she said, almost flirtatiously. She stepped closer, close enough to slip a lighter into his pocket unnoticed.

**Mission complete**

She stepped back a bit. "I can give it to you now, if you'd like."

"Uh…sure…"

The smile turned into a grin as her fist clenched at her side, before raising it. Her job was complete, but revenge had not yet been delivered. "By the way, my name's Cameron _Jackson_."

* * *

**Chapter two guys! Feels great to have this completed. How'd you guys like it? I know that's it's Percy perspective again, and I'm sorry, it will be his again for the next chapter, then I swear it will be Cam's turn. I just wanted to get Percy's little pre-camp adventure out there, and since Cam didn't come until a few hours later, it would have been really hard to write what happened. I would have had to put up a chapter of Cammie taking tests all day. Not exactly prime reading material. Do you like what I've done with Cammie? She's a bit more mysterious in this chapter. After a full year at spy school, she's already starting to use the skills she learned there, but she's still got her little spark of rebellion. I'm really going to start tying in some of the spy stuff in this story. **

**So give me some feedback on what you did and didn't like about this chapter.**

**Stay nerdy my dearest readers.**

**P.S. I might be doing a short Youtube video on this last scene with Cammie. Like really short. Maybe I will, if I can get my friends help on it, and it would take months to complete most likely. So tell me what you think about that.**


	3. Chapter 3

WE HAIL THE TAXI OF ETERNAL TORMENT

* * *

Annabeth was waiting for us in an alley down Church Street. She pulled Tyson and me off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep.

"Where'd you find _him?_" she demanded, pointing at Tyson.

Now, under different circumstances, I would have been really happy to see her. We'd made our peace last summer, despite the fact that her mom was Athena and didn't get along with my dad. I'd missed Annabeth probably more then I wanted to admit.

But I'd just been attacked by cannibal giants, Tyson had saved my life three or four times, and all Annabeth could do was glare at him like _he _was the problem.

"He's my friend," I told her.

"Is he homeless?"

"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"

She looked surprised. "He can talk?"

"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."

"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him.

I couldn't believe she was being so rude. I examined Tyson's hands, which I was sure must've been badly scorched by the flaming dodge balls, but they looked fine—grimy and scarred, with dirty fingernails the size of potato chips—but they always looked like that. "Tyson," I said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."

"Of course not," Annabeth muttered. "I'm surprised the Laistrgonians had the guts to attack you with him around."

Tyson seemed fascinated by Annabeth's blond hair. He tried to touch it, but she smacked his hand away.

"Annabeth," I said, "what are you taking about? Laistry-what?"

"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before."

"Laistry—I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided. "Now come on, we have to get out of here."

"The police'll be after me." The thought of telling Cammie that I was once again a fugitive occurred to me, but Annabeth was taking.

"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"

"The dreams…about Grover?"

Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"

I told her my dream. "Why? what were _you _dreaming about?"

Her eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour.

"Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."

"My mom was saying the same thing! But what _kind _of trouble?"

"I don't know exactly. Something's wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. I was going to stop by Gallagher to grab Cammie, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to drag a bunch of monsters into a top security spy school with a mine field surrounding it. That might raise some questions. So I just messaged her and told her to get her butt up here."

"You messaged her?! Annabeth, she's surrounded by girls all day! She's virtually never alone! Did it not cross your mind that messaging her in the middle of a school day might not be the smartest idea?" I questioned, slightly panicky.

She glared at me. "It was an emergency. Anyway, we made a sort of deal before we left camp. At one thirty every day she takes a bathroom break, so if I ever need to call her for some reason, I do it then."

"…While she's in the bathroom?"

"She's not actually _going _to the bathroom, she just stands there in a stall, waiting."

"Well then why didn't she ever tell me about this time slot she seems to have set open?" I asked, begrudgingly.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You are _twins, _Percy. You can talk through a telepathic link. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Have you had many attacks?"

I shook my head. "None all year…until today."

"None? But how…" Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Canadians in the gym called Percy something…Son of the Sea God?"

Annabeth and I exchanged looks.

I didn't know how I could explain, but I figured Tyson deserved the truth after almost getting killed.

"Big guy," I said, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena—"

"Yes," Tyson said.

"Well…those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."

"Yes," Tyson said, like he was still waiting for me to get to the point.

"Uh, well, Annabeth and I—and my sister, Cammie—are half-bloods," I said. "We're like…heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."

"Yes."

I stared at him. He didn't seem surprised or confused by what I was telling him, which surprised and confused me. "So…you believe me?"

Tyson nodded. "But you are…Son of the Sea God?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."

Tyson frowned. _Now _he looked confused. "But then…"

A siren wailed. A police car raced past our ally.

"We don't have time for this," Annabeth said. "We'll talk in the taxi."

"A taxi all the way to camp?" I said. "You know how much money—"

"Trust me."

I hesitated. "What about Tyson?"

I imagined escorting my giant friend into Camp Half-Blood. If he freaked out on a regular playground with regular bullies, how would he act at a training camp for demigods? On the other hand, the cops would be looking for us.

"We can't just leave him," I decided. "He'll be in trouble, too."

"Yeah," Annabeth said, looking grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on."

I didn't like the way she said that, as if Tyson were a big disease we needed to get to the hospital, but I followed her down the alley. Together the three of us sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind us from my school gymnasium.

* * *

"Here," Annabeth stopped us on the corner of Tomas and Trimble. She fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."

She looked even worse then I'd realized at first. Her chin was cut. Twigs and grass were tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her jeans look suspiciously like claw marks.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

All around us, sirens wailed. I figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt Matt Sloan had given them a statement by now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson and I were the bloodthirsty cannibals.

"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin that I recognized to as a drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped no one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

"Annabeth," I said," New York taxi drivers won't take that."

"Stȇthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ȏ hárma diablȇs!"

As usual, the moment she spoke in the language of Olympus, I somehow understood it. She'd said: _Stop, Chariot of Damnation!_

That didn't exactly make me feel real excited about whatever her plan was.

She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.

It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was smoky gray. I mean it looked like it was _woven _out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. There were words printed on the door—something like GYAR SSIRES—but my dyslexia made it hard for me to decipher what it said.

The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. "Passage? Passage?"

"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at me to get in, like this was all completely normal. I guess a boy just has to get used to this kind of stuff.

"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take _his _kind!"

She pointed a boney finger at Tyson.

What was it? Pick-on-Big-and-Ugly-Kids Day?

"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."

"Done!" the woman screamed.

Reluctantly I got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Annabeth crawled in last.

The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy—no different than more taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating us from the old lady…Wait a minute. There wasn't just one old lady. There were three, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress.

The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"

She floored the accelerator, and my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: _Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!_

I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided I wasn't that desperate…yet.

The cab sped around the corner of West Broadways, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!"

"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could _see _that!" the driver complained.

Wait a minute. _Give her the eye?_

I didn't have time to ask questions because the driver swerved to avoid an oncoming deliver truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling _thump_, and flew into the next block.

"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it!"

"You bit it last time, Anger!" the driver said, whose name must have been Wasp. How unfortunate. "It's my turn!"

"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger. Really? You named your child _Anger_?

The middle one, Tempest—I was starting to think that maybe these were just nicknames—screamed, "red light!"

"Break!" yelled Anger.

Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up one the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over the newspaper box. She left my stomach somewhere back on Broome Street.

"Excuse me," I said. "But…can you see?"

"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.

"No!" screamed Tempest form the middle.

"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window.

I looked at Annabeth. "They're blind?"

"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have one eye."

"One eye?"

"Yeah."

"Each?"

"No. On eye total."

Next to me Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."

"Oh, man," I said, because I had seen Tyson get carsick on school field trips and it was _not _something you wanted to be within fifty feet of. "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?"

The three gray ladies were too busy squabbling to pay me any attention. I looked over at Annabeth, who was hanging on for dear life, and gave her a _why-did-you-do-this-to-me _look.

"Hey," she said, "Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp."

"Then why didn't you take it from Virginia?"

"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities."

"We've had famous people in this cab!" Anger exclaimed. "Jason! You remember him?"

"Don't remind me!" Wasp wailed. "And we didn't have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!"

"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.

"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"

"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"

"But I'm driving, you old hag!"

"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!"

Wasp swerved to hard onto Delancey street, squishing me between Tyson and the door. she punched the gas and we shot up Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.

The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, I realized that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed sunken eyelids, except for anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn't get enough of anything it saw.

Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's mouth. This mad Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"

Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.

"Uh, if anybody is interested," I said, "Were going to die!"

"Don't worry," Annabeth told me, sounding pretty worried. "The Gray sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise."

This coming from the daughter of Athena, but I wasn't exactly reassured. We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.

"Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. "We know things!"

"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, stilling hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"

"The location you seek!" Tempest added.

Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either said screaming, "Be quite! Be quite! He didn't even ask yet!"

"What?" I said. "What location? I'm not seeking any—"

"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"

I could hear a voice, one that sounded very similar to Cammie's (for all I knew it was her) saying, _they're lying. Grill them some more on this location. They are _wise. _They know things. Don't let this go. Question them._

"Tell me," I insisted.

"No!" they all screamed.

"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.

"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.

"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned. "And speaking of that—gives it back!"

"No!" yelled Anger.

"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"

She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening _pop_ and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into my lap.

I jumped so hard, my head hit the ceiling and they eyeball rolled away.

"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.

"Give me they eye!" Wasp wailed.

"Give her the eye!" Annabeth screamed.

"I don't have it!" I said.

"There, by your foot," Annabeth said. "Don't step on it! Get it!"

"I'm not picking that up!"

The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.

"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.

"Annabeth," I yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"

"Are you crazy? Get the eye!"

Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.

At last I steeled my nerves. I ripped off a chunk of my tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.

"Nice boy!" Anger cried, as if she somehow knew I had her missing peeper. "Give it back!"

"Not until you explain!" I told her. "What were you talking about, the Location I seek?"

"You're sister is not here, how can you both hear what you seek?" Wasp yelled.

"I'll pass on the message. Now _what _were you saying?"

"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"

I looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.

"Percy," Annabeth warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces."

"First they have to tell me," I said. "Or I'll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic."

"No!" the Gray Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!"

They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.

"What do you mean?" I said. "That makes no sense!"

"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. now give us the eye! Almost to camp!"

We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. I could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of us, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia's tree, which contained the life force of a fallen hero.

"Percy!" Annabeth said more urgently. "Give them the eye _now_!"

I decided not to argue. I threw the eye into Wasp's lap.

The old lady snatched it up, pushing it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!"

She slammed on the brakes. The Taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.

Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."

"All right," I told the Gray Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."

Instead of them telling me what they knew, they all turned around in their seats and glared at me. "Get out!" they screamed together.

The back doors to the cab flew open, and the three sisters all reached back to push me out. I fell on the ground with and umph. I guess they held a bit of resentment towards me for holding their one eye hostage. In all fairness, it was only more a minute.

Annabeth and Tyson exited the car, and the taxi sped away, leaving us in a smoke cloud.

Annabeth glared at me. "Really?"

I shrugged. "My inner Cammie came out for a bit."

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. Tyson just stood there smiling, happy he wasn't feeling sick anymore.

"Aren't you glad me and Cammie don't fight like that?" I joked.

For a moment, Annabeth smiled.

Speaking of my sister, I started to get that feeling I always had when Cammie was near.

_Cammie?_

She didn't answer, so I left Annabeth, who was staring worriedly at Tyson, as if she didn't know what to do with him, running toward the feeling_. Cammie? Cam, where are you?_

Campers yelled hi, and I politely waved back, asking if any of them saw her.

"Hey, Percy!" Josh Abrams yelled to me from the basketball court. "Long time no see!"

"Hey Josh, have you seen Cammie?" I asked, running up to him. His friend, Dillon rolled his eyes at my arrival, and left. He's an Aries camper, so I wasn't really all that surprised.

He nodded. "Yeah, Cammie came and asked for a ride up to New York after all her exams were over. They got done early, and she ditched her friends day, or whatever she was planning on doing. Said she had a bad feeling about something, and wanted to go make sure you stayed out of trouble. We stopped for a bit, too see your mom. She kind of…well she disappeared for a bit, but then she came back, said you had already left, and we headed over here. She should be somewhere… that a'way." He pointed to his right.

"Thanks Josh," I said, but paused. I hadn't seen Josh since last summer. Not since Luke. I don't know why, but I felt like I needed to say something to him. "So, um…"

"Look, if your hesitation is about Luke, I understand."

"No! I mean, I don't blame you for what he did, obviously because you didn't do it—"

"Well obviously not, and I know you wouldn't do that, Percy. I mean—" he smiled. "You're Cammie's brother. You two are too much alike."

"Did you two get… close in Roseville?"

He blushed a deep red. "I wouldn't say close, but we're good friends now. I mean, so are her and Dee Dee, but…"

I waved my hand. "I'm sorry, it's really none of my business, I'll just leave you alone. So, she's that way?" I pointed to the way he had directed me, even though I was absolutely certain she was.

Josh nodded. "That's where I last saw her. I think she said she was going to put her stuff away in your guys' cabin."

Thanking him, I ran to the cabin, a smile on my face as the feeling got to its peak. "Cammie!" I yelled out to the wooden structure. "Cam, you in here? Come on out!"

I ran in, and up to her bed, where her suitcase and backpack lay in a neat pile.

"You called for me, oh seditious one?" a voice said behind me.

"Cammie!" I spun again, smiling at the smirking girl behind me.

"Miss me, Percy?" she asked, holding out her arms.

I crushed her into a hug, picking her up and spinning her around. "Cammie!" I yelled with delight.

"Ahh! Percy, put me down!" she laughed, though she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, not allowing herself to be torn away. I set her down and looked her over. She looked slightly older, almost mature, but I could see the deceitful look that seemed to live in her eyes, sparkling like the sun on the sea. She was wearing her uniform, and I had to hold back the sad feeling I always got when I realized she was always so far away.

"This is the first time I've actually seen you in your uniform," I told her in a lame voice, as if I hadn't seen her in years, instead of months.

She looked down at herself. "I haven't had time to change yet."

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll just be over here…"

She got a sad look on her face, all smiles gone. "Don't be a stranger to me, Percy. I'm the same, promise."

I gave her a weak smile. "A stranger? You? Come on, Cammie, we share a brain. I know more about you then I really want to." I poked her in the stomach, putting my hands up in a mock challenge. "Come on now, fight me."

She laughed. "Come on, Percy, I go to a spy school. I've got some new tricks up my sleeve. Tricks you don't want me to unleash."

"Well then, let's bring the cat out of the box, huh? Show me all the stuff you've learned in your little spy school."

"Oh, you want to go?" I nodded. "You sure? 'Cause once the cat comes out, so do the claws."

"Oldest line, ever."

"Old, but you're about to see how true it is!"

I fake right hooked at her, and she grabbed my fist, twisting it behind my back. It was quick, it was swift, and it hurt. A lot. "Okay, okay, kitty can go back in the box now."

"Chicken," she joked, letting me go. "Just so you know, I could have made that ten times worse."

I sat on her bed. "So you're going back to Gallagher?"

She cocked her head to the side. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Well you said "I go to a spy school", not "I went to a spy school."

She sat down next to me. "Well, I really like it there. I mean, obviously, since it's the first school I haven't been kicked out of."

I flipped open the top of her suitcase open, finding it completely empty. "Did you unpack already?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I thought I might as well get it over with, you know?"

"No. No I don't know. My sister is a procrastinator. Last summer, she didn't even unpack." I suddenly realized how mean I sounded when I said that.

We stayed in silence for a moment before she said, "Speaking of schools, which we were before that, how's public school going?"

"Well, I just blew up my gym so..."

"I already have you covered. I stopped by at the school on my way up, and told the principle and his posse that it was a gas leak started by a flame."

"A gas leak, huh? How'd you pull that one off?" I asked her.

"Easy, I used this little baby," she said, pulling a fake ID out of her pocket that said Alisa Fletching, "and told them there was a gas leak, and that the Henderson Gas Company would take care of everything. I hacked into the company's computer system, and arranged for them to clean up the mess and everything!"

"You told them that for the explosion to have happened someone would have needed a flame? No doubt they blamed that on me."

"At first, yes, you were the initial suspect, but—" she held up a finger for dramatic affect—"after convincing them to search the students for any sort of fire starting devices—legal reasons and all— I then slipping a lighter into a boy's pocket, before punching him in the face—just because—and I believe he'll be taking the blame."

I gave her a disbelieving look. "So you just randomly incriminated someone?"

"Not exactly random. He was making quite the scene."

"Do you even know who it was?"

"Well I didn't really get his name before I smashed his teeth in. Afterwards—well you can imagine it was quite a bloody mess, his mouth that is. He had a hard time getting his name out. Mott Sloon, I think it might have been. Could have been something else, he kind of had a mouth full of teeth. Oh well, who knows."

I grinned. "You know, Annabeth pretended she was going to stab him with her knife," I told her.

Cammie smirked. "See, everyone's been following through with the things you've wanted to do for months."

I just chuckled, shaking my head. "You are…I'm not sure what you are."

She shrugged. "Well, obviously, I couldn't let Annabeth have all the fun. And yes, that was fun."

My smile faded a bit. "Fun, I'm sure, but you could have gotten into a lot of trouble."

She shrugged. "What's life without a little risk?"

"Our very existence is a risk, Cammie. And yeah, Matt Sloan is a jerk, but he isn't worth the trouble."

"There was no trouble. I had backups on the police databases if they questioned me, I had escape plans. Don't worry."

"How can I not worry? You could have been sent to jail! You put yourself in danger."

"I'm not putting myself in any danger; I was cleaning up what could have been a huge mess—"

"I don't need you cleaning up after me. I'm not a child! You should have let me know what you were doing before you started sorting things out for me."

"If I hadn't done what I had the moment I did, they would still be blaming you for this mess. It's not your fault that the monsters came, so you shouldn't have to take the fall. It's not fair! I did what I could to keep you out of their sights—away from them. The police would come after you, questions would be asked. If Gallagher found out you were my brother—"

"Then you're glorious little fantasy would come crashing down, right?" I scoffed. "Then you'd have to come home. How horrible, am I right? Having to come live with us boring, poor people, away from your fancy meals and exceptional friends. Life would just be so hard."

The moment I said it, I regretted it. I could feel the hurt she felt from my words, and it was more painful than any punch or kick I had ever received. I knew she didn't think like that. I knew she loved us, more than that school, or any of those meals and friends. She had explained to me what would happen if the school found out she wasn't really Cammie Morgan, and that her and I had held the children terrorist title for a while. There wouldn't be a moment in our lives that they wouldn't be watching us. She'd be seen as a spy on the school—a mole, trying to get inside the government for our next big terrorist act—and might even go to jail. Or worse. Bad things happen to traitors. Now that she was in, she could just get out. Not without bringing us down with her.

So I don't know why I said it. She had just sat there while I shouted abuse, and it only made me feel worse that she wasn't arguing back. I knew I should apologize, especially when tears started streaking down her face.

I tried to wipe them away—I hated that kind of water—but she stepped back.

"Well," she said in a false cheery voice. "I'm already unpacked."

"Cammie—"

"You should too. Dinner will be soon, don't want to miss that." She got up, and started to walk away. I went to grab her elbow, but she just said, "Please, I don't really wanna talk right now," before walking out.

I had screwed up, it was painfully obvious. It wasn't in the Jackson family nature to let our mistakes go unfixed. So I ran after my little sister. I couldn't let my words sink in and fester in her mind. Soon it would make a home for itself—a never faltering doubt in her mind that I though she didn't care about us.

I ran out of our cabin after her, but saw she had been stopped by Annabeth.

"There's no time for that!" she had yelled at Cam. "We have to go now."

"Go?" I asked. "Go where?"

But even as I said it, I could see both girls heads turning, watching the crest of the hill. And then I understood the urgency.

At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.

* * *

**So, I'm sorry this was late. I've been working hard on revising and rewriting, and I had to update my one-shot fanfic, and all that jazz. But on the bright side, my other Fic is finished, my one-shots are not priority, and I'm still planning on keeping my one week update system. The chapters are shorter in this book, so you might even get lucky and get two updates a week! Don't count on it though.**

**Sorry if none of you liked how made Percy got. I'm just trying to build up this sort of breaking relationship. Now, I don't know if you guys want me to just get back into my pattern, where it switches prospective every other chapter, or if I should give Cam two chapters in a row, to make up for giving Percy three. I'd love to hear from you guys.**

**Okay, I love you all, so stay Nerdy. (I keep saying that at the end of every chapter. I don't really know why, but I get great joy. I think I'll keep it around for a bit.)**


	4. Chapter 4

TYSON PLAYS WITH FIRE

* * *

Here's a little history lesson: last summer, me and Percy fought our second monster ever. On our quest, we fought even more, but if there was one think we hated the most, it was bulls. That second monster we fought was the Minotaur—you know, the one that Theseus killed in the labyrinth. Yeah, well, he came back, and we fought him, ended up killing him, but not before he took our mother (Long story. But we got her back, no worries.). Basically we hate the half bull man.

And now—on the very same hill top that we faced the Minotaur—stood two bulls. Not your normal, run of the mill, kinds of bulls. No, no. That would be too simple. Too _boring. _No, they have to be bronze ones that were elephant sized. Oh, and it wouldn't be any fun unless they breathed fire too. Fun, right?

I watched the ruckus, then glanced at Percy and Annabeth. Percy was still in his burned-up tie-dye gym clothes (I could tell by the smell), and Annabeth was just as much a mess as he was. I knew Percy had Riptide with him. Annabeth had her backpack, and a knife, but that looked to be about it.

"Oh, man," said Annabeth, running a hand through her hair as she watched the battle rage on.

Grunting, I pulled on my necklace (my own sword, though it had no name) turning it into a long bronze blade. "I'm up for a hamburger, how 'bout you guys?"

"Might taste a bit funny," Percy said, taking Riptide out. "But I'm up for it."

As we ran through the camp, heading towards the hill crest, it wasn't the bulls that really worried me. Nor was it the ten heroes that were trying to fend them off, who were getting their butt whooped. What worried me was that the bulls were ranging all over the hill, even around the back side of the pine tree. That shouldn't have been possible. The camp's magic boundaries didn't allow monsters to cross past Thalia's tree. But the metal bulls were doing it anyway.

One of the heroes shouted, "Border patrol, to me!" A girl's voice—gruff and familiar.

_Border patrol?_ I thought. The camp didn't _have _a border patrol.

"It's Clarisse," Annabeth said. "Come on, we have to help her."

"Well…" I muttered, but even I agreed with her. Normally, helping Clarisse wasn't a high priority on my list—she's kind of a jerk. The first time we met, she and her buddies tried to introduce me and Percy's heads into the toilets. She was a daughter of Aries and after a disagreement with her daddy, all his children basically hate our guts.

But, she was in trouble, and so was camp, so I guess helping her wouldn't be too horrible of an idea. Also, rubbing it in her face that I came to her rescue would delight me beyond belief. Her fellow warriors were scattering, running in panic as the bulls charged. The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horsehair plume on his helmet blazed like a fiery Mohawk. Had this not been such a serious problem, I would have laughed at how silly he looked. Clarisse's own armor was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull's shoulder.

Percy uncapped Riptide. It shimmered, growing longer until he held a bronze sword much like mine. "Where's Tyson? Is he okay?"

I glanced at Annabeth, who said, nonchalantly, "I left him up at the crest."

"I don't want him taking any more chances."

"No! We need him."

Percy starred at her incredulously. "He's mortal. He got lucky with the dodge balls but he can't—"

"Percy, do you know what those are up there? They're the Colchis bulls."

"Colchis bulls, I've read about them, they were in that one book you gave to me," I said. "They were made by Hephaestus."

She nodded. "We can't fight them without Medea's Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We'll get burnt to a crisp."

"Didn't read about the sunscreen part…"

"I'll have to loan you the demigod version."

"Okay, can we get back to the bulls," Percy yelled.

"We were just making small talk, you know. Educational small talk. It's educational!" I yelled.

We continued to bicker, just a bit, as Annabeth rummaged through her backpack and cursed. "I had a jar of tropical coconut scent sitting on my night stand at home."

"Well it's of no use to us there," I said. Annabeth's arm shot out to give me a swift punch to the arm. "Ow! I was just saying!"

"Look," Percy butt in. "I don't know where you're talking about, but I'm _not _going to let Tyson get fried."

"Percy—"

"Tyson," he yelled. "Stay back! I'm going in!"

"Wait, Percy!" I said, holding him back. "Let's not go completely head first into this. Let's…_belly flop _it. Yeah, yeah, I like that, belly flop." He rolled his eyes at me, tugging away. I regained my grip. "NO," I scolded. "We need a plan. Some form of attack." I looked up at where Clarisse was holding off the bulls, yelling at her patrol, trying to get them into a phalanx formation. It was a good idea. I had the same one. A few campers listened, lining up shoulder-to-shoulder, locking their shields to form an ox-hide-and-bronze wall, their spears brisling over the top like porcupine quills.

Unfortunately, Clarisse could only muster six campers. The other four were still running around with their helmets on fire. Pulling Annabeth's backpack out of her arms, I started to rummage through it.

"Hey!"

"Hush, Princess," I told her, still looking. Finally, I found a bottle of water. "This should do nicely."

Grabbing the back of one campers breastplate as he ran by, I poured the content of the bottle all over his head. "You're welcome," I said. "Now get in line!" and pushed him towards the formation.

Whipping out all the excess water that I had just used on him, I shot it around like a ball in pinball, quenching every fire.

"Well done, Cam," I congratulated myself. "Okay! All of you! Get your butts moving! Formation, now!"

After their initial shock, they did as I told them. Running up to Clarisse, I stood beside her. "Now you all listen to me—"

Clarisse grabbed my arm. "What are you doing, Jackson?" she snarled.

"Leading the patrol you did a horrible job keeping in one group," I said nonchalantly. I took survey of the bulls. Annabeth had them distracted by running past them, then turning invisible. But as soon as I was done talking to Clarisse, the one lost interest and turned to us instead.

"We're not going to be able to hold it," I told her.

"_Yes, _we are," she snapped then ordered, "Hold the line!"

Whatever else you could say about Clarisse, she was brave. She was a big girl with cruel eyes like her father's. She looked like she was born to wear Greek battle armor, but I didn't see how even she could stand against that bull's charge.

Unfortunately, at that moment, as I was about to argue with that stubborn, _brave_, girl, I realized the bull wasn't going for the line. It was going for Clarisse's unprotected side.

"Behind you!" Percy yelled, coming up behind me. "Look out!"

All it did was startle her. Bull Number One crashed into her shield, and the phalanx brock. Clarisse went flying backward and landed in a smoldering patch of grass. The bull charged past her, but not before blasting the other heroes with its fiery breath. Their shields melted right off their arms. They dropped their weapons and ran as bull Number Two closed in on Clarisse for the kill.

_Get her under the arms, _I told Percy. We both lunged forwards, grabbing Clarisse, dragging her out of the way just as Bull Number Two freight-trained past. Percy had taken Riptide out and cut a huge gash in its flank, but the monster just creaked and groaned.

"Let me go!" Clarisse pummeled my hand. "Curse you two!"

"Well curse you too!" I said, dropping her next to the pine tree. We were on the inside slope of the hill, now, the valley of Camp Half-Blood directly below us—the cabins, the training facilities, the Big House—all of it at risk if these bulls got past us.

Annabeth shouted orders to the other heroes, telling them to spread out and keep the bulls distracted.

Bull Number One ran a wide arc, making its way back toward me. As it passed the middle of the hill, where the invisible boundary line should've kept it out, it slowed down a little, as if it were struggling against a strong wind; but then it broke through and kept coming. Bull Number Two turned to face me, fire sputtering from the gash Percy had cut in its side. I couldn't tell if it felt any pain, but its ruby eyes seemed to glare at Percy like he'd just made things personal.

Either way, I didn't like that look. "Percy, there is two of us," I said. "And two bulls. You take that one," I pointed to Bull Number One, "and I'll take this one," I pointed to Bull Number Two.

I knew it had been a while since Percy had trained. I on the other hand, trained at Gallagher, and then with Vanessa, another Demigod. He wasn't doing as intensive training as I was. He was out of practice, and that worried me. _Better that he take the Bull that's not ticked off at him, _I thought.

I lunged but Bull Number Two blew flames at me. I rolled aside as the air turned to pure heat. All the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs. My food caught on something—a tree root, maybe—and pain shot up my ankle. Still, I managed to slash with my sword and lop off part of the monster's snout. It galloped away, wild and disoriented.

I looked over at Percy, to see how he was fairing. He was rolling and ducking, taking the more defensive approach. I got up to try and help him, but my left leg buckled underneath me. My ankle was sprained, maybe broken.

I growled. _Come on, Cammie, you've fought through worse. _

Bull Number Two came running back, angrier than ever. I could attempt to crawl out of the way, but by the time I did, it would have already thought to have changed its path.

Annabeth shouted: "Tyson, help Cammie!"

Somewhere near, toward the crest of the hill, Tyson wailed, "Can't—get—through!"

I could see Percy turn around in worry, about to run to my aid, but Bull Number One kept him preoccupied.

"I, Annabeth Chase, give you permission to enter camp!"

Thunder shook the hillside. Suddenly Tyson was there, barreling toward me, yelling, "Pretty Girl needs help!"

_Pretty Girl? _Not that I didn't enjoy the name. The exact opposite actually. But still, this was Percy's friend, and he was about to throw himself in front of a fire breathing cow.

"Tyson, no!" I yelled, just as he made himself a shield in front of me, barring his back to the flames.

"Cammie! Tyson!" Percy yelled as he plunged his sword into Bull Number One's head, causing it to go haywire down the hill.

I expected fire. I expected to become bacon. But as the fire rained down, all I felt was heat, but no actual burning. I looked up to see Tyson's face near mine, staring right back at me. He wasn't in pain. He wasn't burning. He was just looking at me like I was some kind of magical creature.

"What in Hades name is going on," I gasped.

"Hi," Tyson said.

"Hi," I said, waving back slightly.

"I'm Tyson."

"I got that. I'm Cammie."

"I know. You're Percy's pretty sister."

Now it was involuntary, so no judgment, but I smirked. "Yep, that's me, the pretty sister." Then a thought came to mine. "Hey, Tyson?"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if things get a little hotter? Just a smidge?"

He thought for a moment. "Okay."

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my concealer compact. It had been a Christmas present from Bex. Snapping it open, I reached up past Tyson's head, receiving some instant burns, throwing it into Bull Number Two's mouth.

And that's when Bull Number Two exploded.

Scraps of metal and fire fell down on us, one big chunk hitting Tyson on the head.

"Ouch," he frowned, getting up.

"Sorry," I said. "But on the bright side, that oversized cow is gone."

"Cammie!"

Percy came running into me, nocking me to the ground. "Hey, Bro," I smiled. "Did you tell Tyson I was pretty?"

He squeezed the air out of me, and I couldn't tell if that meant he was glad to see me, or if he was using that as a substitute to a punch.

"How did you do that?" he asked. "How did you get the bull to blow up?"

"Bex gave me makeup for Christmas," I said. "But kind of an unconventional sort of makeup."

"Unconventional?"

"It was actually a kit of explosives. That right there was my C4 compact." I looked around. "What about the other bull?"

He pointed to the bottom of the hill. Clarisse had take care of the bull. She'd impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, it was just laying on it's side, twitching.

Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. a strand of her stringy brown hair was smoldering, but she didn't seem to notice. "you—ruin—everything!" she yelled at us. "I had it under control!"

"Obviously," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't ever, EVER try saving me again!"

"You can count on that," Percy said.

"Clarisse," Annabeth said, coming up behind her. "You've got wounded campers."

That sobered her up. Even Clarisse cared about the soldiers under her command.

"I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage.

"You said it wrong!" I yelled. "You need to say it more like the Terminator!"

Percy turned to Tyson. "You didn't die."

Tyson looked down like he was embarrassed. "I am sorry. Came to help. Disobeyed you."

"Saved my skin," I told him. "Thanks."

"It's my fault, really," Annabeth said. "I let him in. I had to, or else you would have died."

"_Let _him in?" Percy asked. "But—'

"Tyson," I said. He looked at me. "kneel down here for a second."

He shrugged, complying.

The first time I looked at Tyson, I didn't really notice. But now that the adrenaline was dimming down, I realized I couldn't see his face all to clearly. And that's when I started putting things together. You see there's this thing called the Mist. The Mist makes humans see only what their brains can process…but occasionally, it could fool demigods also.

Now, again, with his face just inches way from me, I could see this blurriness around his face. I reached a hand out, touching it. It went passed the blurriness, and touched a smooth flap of skin. An eye.

No, not just an eye. Eyes don't lie in the middle of your face.

_One eye. _One large, calf-brown eye, right in the middle of his forehead, with thick lashes and big tears trickling down his cheeks on either side.

"Hey, there's no need to cry," I said, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't human as I was lead to believe.

He just sniffled.

"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's on of the homeless orphans."

"One of the what?" Percy asked.

"they're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're…_mistakes, _Percy."

"One happy mistake," I smiled at him, making him blush.

"Children of nature spirits and gods. Well one god in particular, usually…and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this on found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."

"But the fire—"

"He's a Cyclops," Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. "They work the forges of the gods. They _have _to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."

I could tell Percy was in complete shock. I was too. How did I not notice Tyson was a Cyclops? No, forget that, how did _Percy _not notice?

But I didn't have much time to think about it just then. The whole side of the hill was burning. Wounded heroes needed attention. And there were still two banged up bronze bulls to dispose of, which I didn't figure would fit in our normal recycling bins.

Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot of her forehead. "Jacksons, if you can stand, pint-sized one, get up, 'cause we need some help. We need to carry all the wounded back to the Big House, let Tantalus know what's happened."

"Tantalus?" I asked, ignoring pint-sized.

"The activities director," Clarisse said impatiently.

"Chiron is activities director. And where's Argus? He's head of security. He should be here," Percy said.

Clarisse made a sour face. "Argus got fired. You three have been gone too long. Things are changing."

"But Chiron…He's trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years. He can't just be gone. What happened?"

"_That _happened," Clarisse snapped.

She pointed to Thalia's tree.

Every camper knew the story behind the tree. Six years ago, Grover, Annabeth, and two other demigods named Thalia and Luke had come to Camp Half-Blood chased by and army of monsters. When they got cornered on top of this hill, Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, me and Percy's cousin, had made her last stand here to give her friends time to reach safety. As she was dying, her father, Zeus, took pity on her and changed her into a pine tree. Her spirit had reinforced the magic border of the camp, protecting it from monsters. The pine had been there ever since, strong and healthy.

But now, its needles were yellow. A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.

A sliver of ice ran through my chest. Now I understood by the camp was in danger. The magical borders were failing because Thalia's tree was dying.

Someone had poisoned it.

"Oh, someone is going to die," I muttered darkly.

* * *

**Sorry, would have had this out hours ago, but season and series finales suck. If you watch being human or lost girl, grieve with me. It's been sickish.**

**Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter, I know it's short. I've had a really busy weekend, and didn't get to write at all. It has sucked. The next chapter should be out by Sunday, I haven't taken a look at it yet. I also should be a Percy chapter. I'll let you know.**

**Okay, have a great life everyone. **

**Stay nerdy ;)**


	5. Chapter 5

Percy Prospective

* * *

WE GET A NEW CABIN MATE

* * *

Ever come home and found your room messed up? Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to "clean" it, and suddenly you can't find anything? And even if nothing is missing, you get that creepy feeling like somebody's been looking through your private stuff and dusting everything with lemon furniture polish?

That's kind of the way I felt being back in Camp Half-Blood.

Sure, on my run through the camp to find Cammie, I had gotten a glance of the camp, and nothing looked different. The Big House was still there with its blue gabled roof and its wraparound porch. The strawberry fields still baked in the sun. The same white-columned Greek building were scattered around the valley—the amphitheater, the combat arena, the dining pavilion overlooking Long Island Sound. And nestled between the woods and the creek were the same cabins—a crazy assortment of twelve buildings, each representing a different Olympian god.

Then again, I wasn't really paying attention to the camp when I was running through it. My mind was on finding Cammie, and now, when I was walking through it with a slightly clearer head, I could tell. There was an air of danger now. You could tell something was wrong. Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit, counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed. Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods. The forest looked sickly, the grass in the meadow was pale yellow, and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars.

Somebody had messed with my favorite place in the world, and I was not…well, a happy camper.

As we made our way to the Big House, Cammie leaning heavily on me due to her possibly broken ankle, I recognized a lot of kids from last summer. Nobody stopped to talk. Nobody said, "Welcome back." Some did double takes when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties—running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels. The camp felt like a military school. And believe me, I know. Me and Cam have been kicked out of a couple.

None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw. "Whasthat!" he gasped.

"The stables for the pegasi," Cammie said. "They're winged horses."

"Whasthat!"

"Toilets."

"Whasthat!"

"The cabins for the campers," Cammie explained patently. "If they don't know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin—that brown one over there—until you're determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom's group."

He looked at me in awe. "You…have a _cabin?_"

"Number three." I pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone.

"You live with friends in the cabin?"

"Only Cammie."

"_Only _Cammie?" my sister said in a snobbish tone. "There is no _only _about me."

I punched her, but I could tell she knew what I meant. The embarrassing truth: we were the only ones in that cabin because our existence was forbidden. The "Big Three" gods—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—had made a pact after World War II not to have any more children with mortals. We were more powerful than regular half-bloods. We were too unpredictable. Cammie was a prime example of how unpredictable we could be. When we got mad we tended to cause problems…like World War II, for instance. The "Big Three" pact had only been broken twice—once when Zeus sired Thalia, once when Poseidon sired us. None of us should have been born. We were all made from a broken pact.

Thalia had gotten herself turned into a pine tree when she was twelve. Me…well, I was doing my best not to follow her example. I had nightmares about what Poseidon might turn me and or Cam into if we were ever on the verge of death—plankton maybe. Floating patch of kelp. Two twin barnacles that would sit forever for eternity on some immortal whale.

When we got to the Big House, we found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his favorite 1960' lounge music while he packed his saddlebags. I guess I should mention—Chiron is a centaur. From the waist up he looks like a regular middle-aged guy with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. From the waist down, he's a white stallion. He can pass for human by compacting his lower half into a magic wheelchair. In fact, he'd passed himself off as our Latin teacher during my sixth-grade year. But most of the time, if the ceilings are high enough, he prefers hanging out in in full centaur form.

As soon as we saw him, Tyson froze. "Pony!" he cried in total rapture.

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not…leaving?" Her voice was shaky. Chiron was like a second father to her.

Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. "Hello, child. And Percy, Cammie, my goodness. You two have grown over the year!"

I swallowed. "Clarisse said you were…you were…"

"It's not true, is it?!" Cammie exploded. "I mean, they can't fire _you!_ You've been here forever! You're the only one keeping this camp from falling apart."

Chiron smiled proudly, but his eyes glinted with dark humor. "Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."

"Beside himself you mean," I growled. Just the thought of the camp director, Mr. D, made me angry.

"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Cammie snarled. "Just because they can't get their heads out of their—"

"They just don't want to admit that this has something to do with Luke," I said.

"Enough of that," Chiron waved. "That's not the kind of talk I want to be having right now."

Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron's flank but was afraid to come closer. "Pony?"

Chiron sniffled. "My dear young Cyclops! I am a _centaur._"

"Chiron," I said. "What happened to Thalia's tree?"

He shook his head sadly. "The poison used on Thalia's pine is something from the Underworld, Percy. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus."

"Come on, Chiron. You can say it," Cammie said, slightly mockingly. "We all _know _who's responsible. Kro—"

"Do not invoke the titan lord's name, Cammie. Especially not here, not now."

"But last summer he tried to cause a civil war in Olympus!" I said. "This _has _to be his idea. He'd get Luke to do it, that traitor."

"Bad guys don't just die in peace, Chiron," Cammie said. "They always make it a point to come back."

"Perhaps," Chiron said. "But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless…"

"Unless what?" Annabeth asked.

"No," Chiron said. "It's a foolish thought. The whole valley is feeling the shock of the poison. The magical borders are deteriorating. The camp itself is dying. Only one source of magic would be strong enough to reverse the poison and it was lost centuries ago."

"What _is _it?" I asked. "We'll go find it!"

Chiron closed his saddlebag. He pressed the stop button on his boom box. Then he turned and rested his hand on me and Cam's shoulder, looking in our eyes. "Please, you two, you must promise me that you will _not _act rashly. I told your mother I didn't not want you to come here at all this summer. It's much too dangerous. But now that you are here, _stay _here. Train hard. Learn to fight. But do not leave."

"Why," me and Cam yelled at the same time. We both look at each other strangely, before I continued. "We want to do something! We can't just let the borders fail. The whole camp will be—"

"Overrun by monsters," Chiron said. "Yes, I fear so. But you must not let yourself be baited into hasty action! This could be a trap of the titan lord. Remember last summer? He almost took your life!"

"Yes, we remember it vividly," Cam said. "He's the guy who hired another camper to, you know, kill us. Kind of hard to forget that. You know. Percy dying of poison, me bleeding. Things may be hazy at the end, but yeah, I remember. You Percy?"

"Yep."

He smiled. "Twins have such a special bond. It truly is an amazing gift you have, having each other. There is no other bond like it. It's a unique treasure, and you must treat it as such. Don't forget that."

Annabeth was trying hard not to cry. Chiron brushed a tear from her cheek. "Stay with them, child," he told her. "Keep them safe. The prophecy—remember it!"

"I—I will."

"Um…" I said. "Would this be the super-dangerous prophecy that has us in it, but the gods have forbidden you to tell us about?"

Nobody answered.

"Sounds about right," Cammie muttered.

"Chiron…" Annabeth said. "You told me the gods made you immortal only so long as you were needed to train heroes. If they dismiss you from camp—"

"Swear you will do your best to keep them from danger," he insisted. "Swear upon the River Styx."

"I—I swear upon the River Styx," Annabeth said.

Thunder rumbled outside.

"Very well," Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. "Perhaps my name will be cleared and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsman in the Everglades. It's possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until this matter is resolved…one way or another."

Annabeth stifled a sob. Chiron patted her shoulder awkwardly. "There, now, child. I must entrust your safety to Mr. D and the new activities director. We must hope…well, perhaps they won't destroy the camp quite as quickly as I fear."

"Who is this Tantalus guy, anyway?" I demanded. "Where does he get off taking your job?"

A conch horn blew across the valley. I hadn't realized how late it was. It was time for the campers to assemble for dinner.

"Go," Chiron said. "You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, and let her know you're safe. No doubt she'll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you!"

With that, he clopped out of the apartment and down the hall, Tyson calling after him, "Pony! Don't go!"

I realized I'd forgotten to tell Chiron about my dream of Grover. Now it was too late. The best teacher I'd ever had was gone, maybe for good.

Tyson started bawling almost as bad as Annabeth.

I tried to tell them that things would be okay, but I didn't even believe it.

_You know, we're not going to listen to him right? _Cam's voice said.

I looked to where she stood leaning against the wall.

_We never did promise, _I said back.

* * *

The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. We stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in. Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she'd talk to us later. Then she went off the join her siblings from the Athena cabin—a dozen boys and girls with blond hair and gray eyes just like hers. Annabeth wasn't the oldest, but she'd been at camp more summers then just about anybody. You could tell that by looking at her camp necklace—one bead for every summer, and Annabeth had six. No one questioned her right to lead the line.

Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn't seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.

After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin—six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old, African American kid. he had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmith's forge all day. He was nice enough one you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf. Rumor was he could make anything. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing birdbath for your grandmother's garden. Whatever you wanted.

The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded me painfully of Grover.

I'd always had a soft spot for the satyrs. When they were at camp, they had to do all kinds of odd jobs for Mr. D, the director, but their most important work was out in the real world. They were the camp's seekers. They went undercover into schools all over the world, looking for potential half-bloods and escorting them back to camp. That's how we'd met Grover. He had been the first one to recognize we were demigods.

After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Last summer, it had been led by Luke, the guy who'd fought with Thalia and Annabeth on top of Half-Blood Hill. For a while, before Poseidon had claimed us, we were lodged in the Hermes cabin. Luke had befriended us…and then he'd tried to kill me, and turn Cammie against our father. Obviously, she remained unturned, despite her hate for Poseidon.

Now the Hermes cabin was led by Travis and Connor Stoll. They were twins also, identical like us. It was difficult remembering which one was which. Cammie had some method, but I still didn't get it. They were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They wore orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes's kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt. I'd always thought it was funny that the god of thieves would have kids with the last name "Stoll," but the only time I mentioned it to Travis and Connor, they both stared at me blankly like they didn't get the joke.

"Cammie!" a voice yelled from the Hermes group. A small girl with short cropped black hair came running up to us, catching Cammie in a tight embrace.

"Roe!" Cam laughed. "I missed you so much! What have you been up to?"

Roe pulled back and smiled. "Nothing much. Boring, mortal summer. Hi, Percy." She launched herself at me, and I caught her, just barley.

"Hey Roe." We met when we were thrown into the Hermes cabin, before we were determined. She was an undetermined camper, too, and while me and her made friends, she and Cammie really hit it off.

Josh came running up too, followed by another girl with long curly blond hair, Dee-Dee, a daughter of Aphrodite. Again, more Cammie's friends then my own.

As soon as the last campers had filed in, I led Tyson into the middle of the pavilion, while Cammie stood talking with Roe, Josh and Dee-Dee. Conversation faltered. Heads turned. "Who invited _that_?" somebody at the Apollo table murmured.

I glared in their direction, but I couldn't figure out who had spoken.

From the head table a familiar voice drawled, "Well, well, if it isn't Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete."

I gritted my teeth. "_Percy Jackson…_sir."

Mr. D sipped his Diet Coke. "Yes. Well, as you young people say these days: _whatever._"

He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. With his pudgy belly and his blotchy red face, he looked like a Las Vegas tourist who'd stayed up too late in the casinos. Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Mr. D one at a time.

Mr. D's real name is Dionysus. The god of wine. Zeus appointed him director of Camp Half-Blood to dry out for a hundred years—a punishment for chasing some off-limits wood nymph. He seemed to not completely detest Cammie—probably because she gambled with him, and was such a suck up it nearly made me vomit every time I was near one of their games.

Next to him, where Chiron usually sat (or stood, in centaur form), was someone I'd never seen before—a pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner's jump suit. The number over his pocket red 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut gray hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. He started at me; his eyes made me nervous. He looked…fractured. Angry and frustrated and hungry all at the same time.

"This boy," Dionysus told him, "you need to watch. Poseidon's child, you know."

"Ah!" the prisoner said. "That one. I thought there were two?"

"There is," Cammie said, coming up behind me.

"Hum…" he eyed us critically. His tone made it obvious that he and Dionysus had already discussed us at length.

"She's the slightly bareable Demigod I had mentioned," Dionysus said. "And he's the trouble maker."

"I see." He continued to look us over with those eyes. "Do try to not make any trouble."

"Trouble?" I  
demanded.

"Yes. I hear you caused plenty of it last summer."

"It's actually a team effort," Cammie corrected. "Do I get no credit at all in that stunt?"

"And then there was just this morning."

"Fixed," Cam said, crossing her arms. "You won't have to worry about that. We already got that covered."

"She's not always this annoying," Dionysus drawled, picking under his nails. "She's oddly protective over the boy."

"Extremely, and to no certain length. By the way, it's not my pleasure to meet you, Tantalus," she said, not even putting her hand out.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You know me?"

"I've heard you being mentioned a few times by some…_livid _campers. After getting to talk to you for less than a minute, I can _totally _see who it is they were talking about. Tantalus, a spirit from the Fields of Punishment. I think I've mentioned him a few times, Percy, from the book I read. He's the one who can't eat or drink anything. He stands in the lake with the fruit tree hanging over his head. You know, _taunting _him."

_You're pushing it, _I warned, but was still amused. "What exactly did you do to earn that punishment again?" I asked.

Tantalus's eyes narrowed at us. "Trouble, I can see it," he muttered. The satyrs were shaking their heads vigorously, trying to warn us. "I'll be watching you, Jacksons. I don't want any problems at my camp."

"_Your _camp has problems already…sir."

Cam grabbed my hand, not in a hurry-let's-get-out-of-here way, but in a let's-have-the-last-word, kind of way. Tyson started to follow us.

"Oh, no," Tantalus said. "the monster stays here. We must decide what to do with it."

"_Him,_" I snapped. "His name is Tyson. And he saved _your _camp. You could show a little gratitude."

"Oh yes," Tantalus sighed, "and what a pity that would've been, if this place had been burnt down."

Dionysus snickered.

"You'd be sent right back to stand in that lake," Cammie mentioned. "Your sentence might even get worse, seeing as you failed in your duty here."

"Leave us," Tantalus ordered, "while we decide this creature's fate."

Tyson looked at me with fear in his eye, but I knew I couldn't disobey a direct order from the camp directors. Not openly, anyway.

"I'll be right over here, big guy," I promised. "Don't worry. We'll find you a good place to sleep tonight."

Tyson nodded. "I believe you. You are my friend."

I'm not sure why, but that really made me feel guilty.

"See you soon, Tyson," Cammie waved brightly, sending waves off brightness in a way only she could.

Later, after dinner, Tantalus started announcements.

"Yes, well," Tantalus said, once the talked had died down. "Another fine meal! Or so I'm told." As he spoke, he inched his hand toward his refilled dinner plate, as if maybe the food wouldn't notice what he was doing, but it did. It shot away down the table as soon as he got within six inches.

"And here on my first day of authority," he continued, "I'd like to say what a pleasant form of punishment this is to be here. Over the course of the summer, I hope to torture, er, interact with each and every one of you children. You all look good enough to eat."

"Cannibal," Cammie muttered.

"And now with some changes!" Tantalus gave the campers a crooked smile. "We are reinstituting the chariot races!"

Murmuring broke out at all the tables—excitement, fear, disbelief.

"Now I know," Tantalus continued, raising his voice, "that these races were discontinued some years ago due to, ah, technical problems."

"Three deaths and twenty-six mutilations," someone at the Apollo table called.

"Yes, yes," Tantalus said. "But I know that you will all join me in welcoming the return of this camp tradition. Golden laurels will go to the winning charioteers each month. Teams may register in the morning! The first race will be held in three days' time. We will release you from most of your regular activities to prepare your chariots and choose your horses. Oh, and did I mention, the victorious team's cabin will have no chores for the moths in which they win?"

An explosion of excited conversation—no KP for a whole month? No stable cleaning? Was he serious?

Then the last person I expected to object did so.

"But, sir!" Clarisse said. She looked nervous, but she stood up to speak form the Ares table. Some of the campers snickered when they saw the YOU MOO, GIRL sign on her back. "What about patrol duty? I mean, if we drop everything to ready our chariots—"

"Ah, the hero of the day," Tantalus exclaimed. "Brave Clarisse, who single-handedly bested the bronze bulls!"

Clarisse blinked, then blushed. "Um, I didn't—"

"And modest, too." Tantalus grinned. "Not to worry, my dear! This is a summer camp. We are here to enjoy ourselves, yes?"

"Uh, _no."_

I inwardly groaned as Cammie stood up. _What are you doing?_

But it was too late. She was already talking.

"Now I don't ever—and hear me when I say this—_EVER _agree with Clarisse, but at the moment she's right," she said. "We can't abandon patrol! Thalia's tree was _poisoned! _Is no one realizing this?"

"The camp's game—"

"_GAMES? You're worried about whether or not we get to play our games? _We were _attacked!_ Not even a few hours ago. People were injured. And that was with the patrol. If we take that away, think about what we're opening ourselves up to. We're basically hanging up a big neon flashing sign that says "Hey, come get us, we're not looking, we're too busy playing _games_—"

"Cameron Jackson—"

"We are not here for fun! We're here to learn how to survive!" she continued. There was muttering from all the tables, but I couldn't tell if it was the good or bad kind. "You go out in that world, and you can be killed, but you come here and you've entered a safe zone where no monster can come and kill you. Now that is threatened and you all just want to build your chariots and race around like we couldn't be killed at any moment? We need the patrol, not games!"

Now the murmurs rose and I could tell they were the good kind, mostly.

But just as she started to rally the troops, something just had to come in and make everyone laugh at us.

Swirling over Tyson was a glowing green trident—the same symbol that had appeared over mine and Cammie's heads the day Poseidon claimed us as his children.

There was a moment of awed silence.

Being claimed was a rare event. Some campers waited in vain for it their whole lives. When we'd been claimed by Poseidon last summer, everyone had reverently knelt. But now, they followed Tantalus's lead, and roared with laughter. "Well! I think we know where to put the beast now. By the gods, I can see the family resemblance!"

Everyone laughed except Annabeth and a few of our other friends.

Tyson didn't seem to notice. He was too mystified, trying to swat the glowing trident that was no fading over his head. He was too innocent to understand how much they were making fun of him, how cruel people were.

But I got it.

We had a new cabin mate. We had a monster for a half-brother.

* * *

**I am so sorry at the lack of updates. I've had such a busy and stressful week. I'll hopefully get the next one up by next week, but I don't want to make a promise I don't know if I can keep.**

**Things are really going to change now. As you can see, a sign of the apocalypse has arisen. Cammie agreeing with Clarisse. And admitting to it too! Next Chapter is Cammie's prospective. And that's where the fun starts **


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